


Now You're Not Here

by Diminua



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-16
Updated: 2013-11-16
Packaged: 2018-01-01 18:56:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1047417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diminua/pseuds/Diminua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Autumn. John. And Sherlock is not here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now You're Not Here

The leaves are turning, curling, tumbling and dying, so much mulch for next year’s spring. John walks through them determinedly, kicks them a little, making them crunch and flutter. No hint of a limp or a tremor in him. Cure steadily outliving the man who applied it. As a doctor he can only find a warm satisfaction in the certainty that his own medicine is as efficacious.

John has cried, even sobbed, for Sherlock. A healthy response to grief. The coping mechanism of the eminently sane. Even Ella approves, though perhaps not the method of his recovery.

It seems that somewhere in the crazy brilliance of his life these last 12 months (is it truly only 12 months?) John found himself again. Built himself back around what seemed so stable (so forever, so much longer than a year) like a vine twisting over a trellis, thick in the trunk, deep rooted.

Solid, even after the support is long gone.

He will always miss him. Whatever his life is from now – and it could be anything, and that was not the case when they first met – he will always have him there. Nothing but a memory, unable to taste the things John wants to share with him. The new Thai place on Seymour road. The honey from the hives in Regents Park. 

All the sweeter to think of Sherlock tasting that sweetness, wrinkling that fastidious nose, speculating about whether the park authorities think to plant nectar rich plants for the sake of the experiment, or expect the bees to take their chances with the showy blooms of the borders, the snowy froth of the chestnuts.

John gathers the nuts and roasts them over the fire, just as they did last year. A glass of sherry, a warm toffee apple oloroso, at his elbow. Sweetness and sharpness and something else, something green and ripe and organic in the way they complement one another.

(He bought two jars of honey. The second is in the back of the cupboard waiting. He’s not quite sure what for.)

The air is sharp, his breath a cloud of vapour on the exhale.

It will soon be Christmas.

Just one more miracle. For John Watson.


End file.
